


bluebird

by FleetingWonderland



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-11
Updated: 2014-06-11
Packaged: 2018-02-04 05:37:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1767451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FleetingWonderland/pseuds/FleetingWonderland
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>chronicles of the hesitant maid-of-honor of the belbin/white wedding.</p>
            </blockquote>





	bluebird

**Author's Note:**

> Real people, not real events.

 

 

 

_This pair of wings worn and rusted,_   
_From too many years by my side._   
_They can carry me, swear to be,_   
_Sturdy and strong but see,_   
_Turning them on still means goodbye._

_And so here we go bluebird,_   
_Gather your strength and rise up._   
_Oh, let him go bluebird_   
_Ready to fly,_   
_You and I,_   
_Here we go..._

**[-Bluebird, Sara Bareilles](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMba8vsep9I)**

 

* * *

 

Meryl invites Maks as her plus one to Charlie's wedding.

Of course he'd already recieved an invitation - everyone from their season of the show had, even Carrie Anne and Bruno and Len and various crew people - but he accepts heartily over the phone.

It's been about a year since Charlie proposed - he and Tanith arrange his wedding on a cool June afternoon in a courtyard at the Eleanor and Edsel Ford house and Meryl's invited to be Tanith's maid of honor and she's allowed to bring a date and her instant thought is Maks, Maks, even though she knows for a fact he's already coming to the wedding.

 

* * *

 

"I can't wait to see you, babe, it's been so long," he says when she asks over the phone and she laughs because it's only been maybe two weeks since she flew to New York to promote Puffs again with Charlie and had ended up staying the weekend while Charlie rushed back to Michigan to finish his wedding planning.

"Yeah, I guess it has been. I've missed you a lot," Meryl responds and it's the truth.

She's missed seeing his face, missed feeling the scruff that he shaves off only for her, misses his kisses on the top of her head just whenever, misses sleeping cuddled into his side. She misses him, misses his presence, and it's an odd feeling because she never missed Fedor at competitions when they were dating. And she's not even sure if they're officially dating - they're more than friends but they haven't put a label on it, and she doesn't want to be the first one to stick something on them.

"I feel very flattered that you're taking me as your date," he says and she can hear the smile in his voice.

"Who else would I ask? Charlie's obviously taken, Fedor's with Becky and hates me, and Luca's back in Italy with Anna. That leaves you."

"You wound me."

"Oh, you know you love me."

"I do," he says quietly and her breath hitches.

They make the plans for him to fly in a few days before the wedding so he and Meryl can spend some private time together, so they can catch up and label whatever it is they have, so they can work things out without it being over Skype or hurried phone calls when one of them's running to one commitment for another.

They tell each other that they love them before they hang up and it feels very different from the way she tells Val or Nicole that she loves them when she's had one too many drinks. It's because it just feels so final.

 

* * *

 

She throws the bachelorette party for Tanith at a bar in Windsor and she ends up with Madison and Marissa at the end of the night, spewing about _how much she loves Charlie and why is he doing this to her, how can he leave her behind after all they've been through, and how could she ever understand anyone as well as she understands him?_

Madison calls a taxi and takes her back to the hotel room they're sharing and gets a plastic tub from the front desk and puts it next to her bed for her to barf into because she had too many shots. Marissa flips on the television and they all watch Law and Order: SVU until they pass out.

Madison doesn't bring it up to her face and neither does Marissa, but she sees the way Evan and Mervin look at her with an odd sort of head tilt when the five of them are at Jacqui's house getting things together for the wedding and dinner rehearsal and knows that they told them.

 _Well_ , Meryl thinks dryly, _at least I came clean before the wedding. Even if it wasn't to the right person._

 

* * *

 

Maks flies in three days before the wedding with Val. She meets him at the airport and while she tries to go in for a chaste kiss, he lifts her up and spins her around like he did when they won, like he would as though he hasn't seen her in years.

"I love you, Meryl," he says into her hair quietly when he puts her down and holds her for a second at the baggage claim. She looks up in surprise and he smiles sheepishly, nervously. "It's the truth. I love you, and I'm so happy I'm here."

"I love you too," she whispers into his shoulder and he pulls back, grinning, pressing kisses to her hair until she hears Val snicker and when Maks releases her, she leans up to Maks and gives him a kiss on the cheek.

Turning to Val, she's met by a teasing smile ("Ay, can you two save it for a few minutes, huh?") and a huge - but stationary - hug.

They put their luggage into the trunk of Meryl's car and drive Val to his hotel - a Holiday Inn just within the city limits of Birmingham. Val gives them both an eyebrow raise when he realizes Maks isn't coming inside with him, but doesn't say anything.

 

* * *

 

They drive in comfortable quiet, Maks scrolling through his phone, the radio turned down low, until they reach Meryl's tiny apartment in Ann Arbor.

She opens the trunk to get out his suitcase out and he wraps his arms around her waist, pulling her into a tight embrace.

They don't make love that night - instead they lay there in her bed and talk to each other and he holds her, stroking her hair and pressing kisses to her collarbone, and she falls asleep into the crook of his neck. Her last thought before she falls asleep is _I could get used to this._

She dreams of Maks and a beagle puppy and a diamond ring and a group of five-year old wobbly skaters that she teaches how to scratch spin and wakes up the next morning stunned, chastising herself, out of sorts.

_(But she did kind of want those things, she really did.)_

 

 

* * *

 

The next few days are a whirlwind of hair appointments, the rehearsal dinner, last-second bridesmaid dress fixings and suddenly she's in her periwinkle empire dress, carrying her bouquet of delphinium and phlox down the aisle right before Tanith and her flower girls, who litter lavender petals on the ground that match Tanith's bouquet - a simple mix of lavender and Queen Anne's lace - and Meryl forces a smile.

She's standing up there, beside Tanith as her maid of honor because Tanith doesn't have a sister and Charlie probably insisted that she was there, she wonders what would have happened if she had acted a little differently, if she had spoken up before Vancouver, maybe she would be in Tanith's place.

_Maybe she would be in Tanith's place._

She stumbles in her heels a little at the thought, and sees Evan Bates scrunch up his eyebrows and look at her questioningly. She slightly shakes her head as if to say 'no big, just a fly or something,' and he shrugs his shoulders and turns back to the ceremony.

She hadn't thought about it until now - she's been so preoccupied with Maks and Val and keeping Marina and Igor apart and the bridesmaid dresses and the bachelorette party that she never stopped and thought how much this was going to change everything, how much Tanith was going to be involved in her life now too.

Tanith was probably going to travel with them to every skating comittment when she didn't have her own life. She was going to probably have kids with Charlie and they could teach them to skate and Meryl would be the happiest faux-aunt on the planet.

But she sees something else, sees her and Charlie becoming coaches, her and Charlie taking a junior team all the way to the top with Marina, traveling the world, best friends and lovers. Like it was supposed to be.

Snapping back from her thoughts, she turns her attention back to the ceremony, where Charlie looks like the happiest person on Earth reading his vows and Tanith is glowing in her beautiful white dress and when the preacher asks if anyone wants to "speak now or forever hold your peace," it briefly flashes across her mind to step up, to stop the wedding, to make things right, to follow what was supposed to be - her and Charlie, together until the end.

But she hesitates and the moment comes and goes and Charlie and Tanith kiss and are married now and she's left out.

 

* * *

 

Charlie whirls Tanith around the room, her skirt fanning out and her hair swaying and catching the sunlight of the perfect June day.

Clayton, after finishing a conversation with Danica about the best sitcoms of the '90s, meanders over and keeps looking over at her, his lips pursed and expression dim.

"What?" she asks, curious to know why his looks are increasingly long, why he looks so confused. "Why do you keep looking at me?"

"I don't know, Mer... I guess I just always thought that would be you out there dancing the first dance with Charlie on your wedding day," Clayton comments and her mouth goes dry.

 

* * *

 

Maks takes her out for the next dance and they sway together closely. She looks up at him and he gives her a warm smile, pressing her even closer to him and she closes her eyes and allows herself to just sway to whatever piece of Tchaikovsky that's currently playing.

"This could be us," she says quietly to him.

"It could be," he replies back, and presses another kiss to the top of her head. "It really could be us out here next."

Her breath hitches again and she holds back tears, playing it off as a cough when she wants to whimper.

 

* * *

 

When the dance is over, Meryl excuses herself to the ladies room.

She dabs her face with some blotting paper that a member of the wedding party has left in the bathroom, rubbing away at the eye makeup glopping up underneath her eyes, rubbing her temples and trying to just calm herself down.

Tessa - sans Scott for the first time in the night - appears in the doorframe, and goes in to hug Meryl, knowing exactly what she's feeling. Or not, because Tessa's wearing a beautiful diamond ring on her left finger and Meryl isn't.

"Oh, Meryl. Why didn't you tell him anything?"

"Because I'm gutless."

"No you're not. If anything, you have the steeliest nerves of anyone I know. And that includes Yuna. Now give me the real reason."

"I want him to be happy. And I love Maks."

Tessa looks at her and shakes her head, but knows there's no use in arguing.

"Oh, Meryl," she repeats and leads her out of the bathroom.

 

* * *

 

A few minutes later, Meryl catches the bouquet.

Danica and Sharna are ecstatic for her and Val can't stop looking between her and Maks. Maks rolls his eyes at Val but smiles at her and she feels conflicted, because she loves him so much but she also knows that that should be _her_ that Charlie's feeding cake to in the middle of the room, that it should be _her_ in that white dress, that it should be _them_ up there together, because it's supposed to be Davis and White forever. Like it always was.

But he rides off in happiness with Tanith, off into their new life together and leaving her behind.

 

* * *

 

 She and Maks go back to her apartment and make love that night, going softly and sweetly, with none of the passion that usually permeates their intimacy. It's all tender and full of love and she allows herself to be happy falling into him, sleeping into his side.

"I love you so much, babe," he says as she snuggles into him.

"I know. I love you too," she responds and he kisses her head and she sighs happily but hesitantly.

She wishes she could say it with as much certainty as he does.

**Author's Note:**

> I felt a lot of things, and when I feel a lot of things I write.  
> Another thing written to let out finals stress. I'll be home free on Friday, hopefully.
> 
> Flowers in this story hold a lot of meaning. The flowers I specifically mention mean very different things. Check out what they mean here:  
> http://www.randomhouse.com/rhpg/features/vanessa_diffenbaugh/flower-dictionary/
> 
> It shouldn't end like this.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed reading this more than I did writing it (because it was painful).  
> -Mara (@nathaliepechalats on tumblr)


End file.
